Mortality rates for pancreatic cancer and other chronic diseases are being calculated, age-sex-race-specific and age-adjusted, for the 51 states, the 510 state economic areas and large counties for 1968-1972 and 1959-1961 for two purposes: (a) to identify geographic patterns of the risk of death due to pancreatic cancer, and (b) to test many hypotheses regarding the extent of the association of pancreatic cancer death rates with risk factors and possible risk factors in both the physical and cultural environment. For white males age 35-74, age adjusted, for the states and the state economic areas, there are statistically significant correlations for pancreatic cancer with (a) respiratory cancer and (b) the cardiovascular diseases (r equal to or greater than 48, n equal to 51, p less than .001) suggesting the possibility that there may be one or more risk factors common to all three cause categories. Most of the highest-rate and very few of the lowest-rate areas are in the South. Work is under way to attempt to define geographic patterns of the risk of pancreatic cancer death for white females and for Negroes, and to identify geographic differences in time trends.